cognitive approach

• What does the cognitive approach believe?

  That psychology should be the study of internal mental processes, for example, memory, perception, etc
• What does the cognitive approach believe about cognitive processes?

  It is appropriate to make inferences about cognitive processes
• What does the cognitive approach emphasise?

  The importance of the role of schema and use models of explanation like theoretical and computer models.
• What are theoretical models?

  Visual representations of internal mental

  processes that are used to help

  researchers simplify and study

  complex processes
• How are theoretical models presented?

  Theoretical models are typically diagrams or flowcharts that show how information is passed between the different systems that manipulate it.
• What is an example of a theoretical model?

  The multi-store model (Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968) is a theoretical model of memory.
• What did the development of the computer in the 1960s lead to?

  Computer models emerging within psychology to explain different mental processes
• What is an example of computer models in psychology?

  The analogy of long-term memory being the hard disk and short-term (working memory) being viewed as the computer's RAM (Random Access Memory) has been applied to the human brain
• What is the information processing model?

  Input leads to processing which leads to output
• What is input?


  Comes from the environment via the senses and is encoded
• What is processing?


  Once it's encoded, it's processed, e.g. through schemas
• What is output?


  The output is the behaviour. This is following processing
• What are inferences?


  Going beyond the immediate evidence to make assumptions about mental processes that cannot be directly observed
• What are schemas?


  A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing.
• How are schemas developed?

  From experience
• Who studied schemas?

  Bugelski and Alampay (1962)
• What are strengths of schemas?

  Process lots of information quickly

  Stops us from being overwhelmed

  Having expectations makes the world less difficult to navigate
• What are weaknesses of schemas?

  Can distort sensory information

  Negative schemas can have a negative impact on mental health

  Can create biased recall

  Contribute to stereotypes
• What is cognitive neuroscience?

  The scientific study of neurological structures, mechanisms, processes, chemistry that are responsible for mental processes.
• How is cognitive neuroscience conducted?

  A variety of brain imaging techniques are used such as fMRI & PET scans.
• What were the origins of cognitive neuroscience?

  Originally, cognitive neuroscience was investigated with the use of post-mortems.
• What is an example of cognitive neuroscience?

  Tulving et al. (1994)
• What did Tulving et al. (1994) do?

  Got their participants to perform various memory tasks whilst their brains were scanned using a PET scanner.
• What did Tulving et al. (1994) find?

  Episodic and semantic memories were both recalled from the prefrontal cortex, but episodic were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex and semantic from the left prefrontal cortex.
• What are three evaluation points of the cognitive approach?

  Supporting evidence

  Real life applications

  Machine reductionism
• Who conducted supporting evidence for the cognitive approach?

  Bugelski and Alampay (1962)
• What did Bugelski and Alampay (1962) do?

  They showed half of their participants a sequence of faces and the other half a sequence of animals. They then presented them with an ambiguous picture which could look like a rat or a man's face.
• What did Bugelski and Alampay (1962) find?


  Participants who saw faces were more likely the say the image was a man and the participants who saw the animals were more likely to say it was a rat
• What is the first real life application of the cognitive approach?

  Cognitive research into memory and the effects of misleading information has reduced the use of eyewitness testimony in court cases, and led to major reforms in police procedure, like the use of the cognitive interview
• What is a second real life application of the cognitive approach?

  A better understanding of thinking patterns has helped professionals understand and treat mental illnesses such as depression through the use of therapies like CBT
• What is a weakness of the cognitive approach?

  It can be considered to be machine reductionist
• How can be the cognitive approach be considered machine reductionist?

  Ignores the influence of human emotion and motivation on the cognitive system, and how this may affect our ability to process information
• Why is being machine reductionist a weakness?

  Fails to fully capture the complexity of human thought and behaviour so is less likely to be a valid explanation of behaviour.